Fight For the Future and organizations like it have appropriated the language of progressives while failing to acknowledge that working artists are even part of the discussion — acting as though the only people who have an interest in creative rights are the RIAA, the MPAA, and other major entities. FFTF also fails to acknowledge their own corporate funding or the fact that their policy agenda is highly conducive to Google’s corporate agenda.

The DMCA is the 1998 law governing copyright in the digital domain. Loopholes in the DMCA have left artists effectively powerless to prevent massive for-profit infringement, leading to the growth of a huge and damaging black market (yup kids, that’s what we call corporate ad-based for-profit piracy: and that’s exactly what it is) in our work. If the devil is in the details, section 512 of the DMCA is our devil’s house.